Box office: Last Breath the only major new film in a slow Oscars weekend

Meanwhile, the Oscars themselves gave most of their awards -- including all the highest-profile ones -- to films that haven't even cracked $16 million yet.

Finn Cole, Woody Harrelson, and Simu Liu in Last Breath.

Not a whole lot to say about this week’s box office.

There was only one new film in the domestic top ten: Last Breath, a deep-sea survival thriller that opened to a mere $7.8 million according to Sunday estimates.

All the other films were holdovers, many of which were already performing somewhat weakly relative to earlier films from their studios or franchises.

Total theatrical revenue was estimated to be somewhere between $53 million and $57 million, making this possibly the worst weekend of the year so far.

Strikingly, the poor showing at the box office this week coincided with Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, where 20 awards were handed out to 11 feature films, and all of the highest-profile awards—for picture, director, and all the acting categories—went to films that have grossed less than $16 million so far in North America.

That’s a big change from last year, when Oppenheimer—which earned almost a billion dollars worldwide—dominated the awards. As it is, this year’s most-celebrated film, Anora, is currently one of the lowest-grossing Best Picture winners in over half a century, with only two early Covid-era movies falling behind it.

A full list of this year’s Oscar-winning films and their grosses is at the bottom of this post. And now, a few more stats and facts re: this week’s top ten, title by title: